Five-year-old cracks Xbox One password security

A young scamp from San Diego recently uncovered a security flaw in the Xbox One’s password system, allowing him to cast off the shackles of the console’s parental controls to play whatever game he damn well pleases. Kristoffer Von Hassel, a 5-year-old from the San Diego area, discovered that if he incorrectly guessed his father’s password, waited for the “try again” screen, and then hit the space bar a bunch of times, the Xbox would shrug and say “close enough,” logging him in. After Von Hassel’s father (who happens to be a computer security researcher) reported his discovery to Microsoft, the company rewarded the kid with $50 worth of games and a one-year subscription to Xbox Live Gold. The flaw has been patched, too. Michael Chen and the KGTV San Diego news team broke this piping hot story:

Because an adorable child discovered the vulnerability, this glaring security hole is being treated as a heartwarming human-interest tale and not as a glaring security hole. If only Edward Snowden had been a towheaded youngster, maybe all that NSA stuff would have seemed like a cute lark. [via Eurogamer and KGTV ABC10 San Diego]